


you can't bribe the door (on your way to the sky)

by hotfrogboy



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by a Harry Styles Song, Love Poems, M/M, Post-Canon, but they're really just harry styles lyrics, for a bit, i dont know man, there are too many harry styles refernce in this fic, this idea grabbed me by the throat and wouldnt let me go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 19:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30077349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotfrogboy/pseuds/hotfrogboy
Summary: He makes his way back up to the dunes, and watches the ocean for a long, long moment.“We can meet again somewhere, somewhere far away from here.”He says it like a prayer.
Relationships: Alex/Tommy (Dunkirk)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	you can't bribe the door (on your way to the sky)

**Author's Note:**

> tommy dies. that's it thats the whole fic. enjoy ((:

Alex thought he could make it. He’d hear the engines’ cries and seen the bombers approach, broken into a sprint with the rest of the Highlanders as they raced towards the beached boat. 

He’d thought he could outrun the planes. 

And then his ankle collapsed from underneath him, rolling in the sand, and he slammed to the earth with a cry, the sand solid under the impact and driving the breath from his lungs. 

He scrabbles frantically, panic clouding his mind so thickly he can barely think.

He was going to die out here.

_“Alex!”_

A grip tightens on his collar and he is hauled upright. His ankle complains violently, and he almost falls again, only kept upright by the hand on his uniform. 

“I got you,” his rescuer huffs, pulling one of Alex’s arms across his own shoulders, and Alex finally has the presence of mind to _look--_

It’s Tommy. Grimy and damp, his jaw clenches as he begins to half-carry, half-drag the other man up the beach.

For a moment Alex can barely think, the hard press of Tommy’s side and muscular shoulders robbing him of breath again.

And then he comes back to himself, and realises they were too slow.

The bomb drops in slow motion, falling between them and the boat. Alex’s heart beats loud and slow in his ears. He doesn’t even have time to process what is happening before--

His eyes screw up as sand and heat wash across his face, and then he’s slammed backwards in the sand, not by a blast, but by a _body._

He blinks his eyes open, and sees Tommy’s face is inches from his own, mouth half open. The other soldier’s body is sprawled across Alex, and he’s heavy and the position is beyond awkward. Alex squirms and Tommy rolls to the side, sitting up and pushing himself shakily to his feet. 

“You alright?” He says softly, voice rough. Alex nods, dusts off his uniform. 

“T-thanks,” he mutters. Tommy shakes his head, and then he takes Alex’s arm and drapes it back across his shoulders.

The sand is crushy and awkward beneath their feet, but the pair of them hobble through it, pick through the shrapnel gingerly. 

Alex doesn’t register the wet heat beneath his fingers until they reach the boat. Tommy lowers his arm, rests back against the metal hull. Inside, they can hear the movements of the rest of the regiment.

There’s red on Alex’s fingers, and Tommy is turning gray.

His knees buckle and he half-falls, a red smear following him down the side of the ship.

“Tommy? Tommy!”

Everything falls horribly into place as Tommy hits the sand, crumpling sideways.

Blood has soaked through the back of his uniform, pieces of shrapnel jabbing through like warped vertebrae.

Alex drops to knees, reaching for Tommy’s head, cradling it onto his knees. Blood begins to bubble over the soldiers lower lip, but his eyes are dry.

Alex’s eyes are not.

“Tommy-- Tommy, hey. Hey, it’s gonna be okay.” 

It takes a long moment for the injured soldier to respond, and when he does it's quiet and rasping.

“No, I-- I don’t think I will, Alex.”

Alex’s heart sinks, tearing itself asunder as it drops past his ribs.

“No, no, you will, you’ll be-- Medic! _Medic!”_ His voice is desperate and breaking and he knows there’s no medic that can hear him but _he_ _has to try._

“Hey, hey…” Speaking is clearly an effort, but Tommy perseveres. “Don’t… cry. It’s… it’s just what happens in war.”

Alex sniffles, running his hands lightly through the dying man’s hair.

“You-- this is my fault, if I had just-- if I had--”

_“No.”_ Tommy grips his arm, and it's like iron. “I-- _I_ went...back for you, A--Alex...not your...fault.”

His hand goes soft, pliant, and drops back to his barely-moving chest. He chokes, gasping for air as his lungs fill with blood. 

This is the final show, and Alex is utterly helpless as he watches the curtain close.

* * *

Alex has come back, years later, after the war. He carries the weight of the last five years on his shoulders, his back scarred and bruised by deaths and losses and bullets. 

The tide is low, the beach broad and smooth, showing no signs of the hell it was. 

Alex picks his way through the dunes carefully, the shrapnel in his knee and thigh making it painful and awkward. 

As he approaches the water he feels something ugly and painful in his chest, threatening to swamp him--

_Thebulletsthepanickedcrushofbodiesthewaterrisinghishandsdrippingred--_

He shakes his head, hard, forcing the memories to the back of his mind. 

They leave an acrid taste, like cigarette ash.

There had been no funeral for Tommy. 

There was no body to bury, no family to grieve for him. 

Alex and Phillipe had been the only people who’d known him, and the Frenchman had caught a bullet in the neck two months after Dunkirk.

Leaving Alex.

Which is why he’s back now.

The waves roll against the sand, harsh and loud. He walks out into the biting ocean, until it laps up to his knees. Alex dips his hand into his satchel and pulls out a letter. It’s short, barely long enough to be called a letter, and the writing is cramped and shaky, the ink smudged. It doesn’t matter. It says what he needs it to say.

_Tommy._

_I couldn’t say this. I can’t say it._

_I think I loved you._

_When I write it out, it seems so small._

_I miss you, Tommy, and I see you everywhere._

_I found a poetry book, in a bookshop, after the beach. There was one that I read so many times that half the page tore out. I don’t know if you can read poetry where you are, but this is the piece I have left._

_‘Sweet creature, sweet creature_

_Wherever I go, you bring me home_

_Sweet creature, sweet creature_

_When I run out of road, you bring me home_

_You'll bring me home’_

He pulls a cigarette lighter from his pocket and uncaps it, the flame brilliant in the night. He touches it to the letter, and holds the paper out, watching it burn, the ash disappearing into the inky water. 

When he releases the last of the letter it sits, still burning, on the surface of the water for a heartbeat. 

As Alex turns away, heading back to the shore, the sparks kick up in the breeze, reaching for him. 

They fall short, and wink out against the sea.

He makes his way back up to the dunes, and watches the ocean for a long, long moment.

_“We can meet again somewhere, somewhere far away from here._ ” 

He says it like a prayer.


End file.
